1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods for improving water and soil and, more particularly, to ecologically beneficial bioremediation, manufacturing, and recycling methods.
2. Description of Related Art
Bioremediation of wastewater from, for example, wetlands or municipal effluent has been successfully accomplished with the use of species of plants that remove excess nutrients. Wetland filtration is one such method of bioremediation, but it requires relatively large land areas to accomplish wastewater cleanup. In addition, the nutrients are generally left in situ and can under some circumstances be rereleased into the environment, such as in a dry-year fire or through succession.
Other methods utilize attached algal colonies known as periphyton, which utilize biological pathways to remove and degrade a wide spectrum of pollutants, such as excess phosphorus, nitrogen, carbon, alkaline earth metals, and heavy metals (Adey, U.S. Pat. No. 4.333,263; Jensen, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,131,820, 5,527,456, 5,573,669, and 5,591,341, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference). Periphyton filtration requires far less land area than wetland filtration and also retains the nutrients in a confined area from which the algae and ingested or sequestered nutrients may be harvested.
Periphyton filtration has been shown to remove a wide array of nutrients and other contaminants usually occurring at low levels when compared with municipal wastewater. The attached algae are known to grow at rates exceeding those of terrestrial plants, and a periphyton filtration system can generate large masses of algae that need to be disposed of after harvesting, typically by transportation from the bioremediation site to another area for introduction into the soil or to be used as livestock feed.
It is known to use the harvested algal biomass as a fertilizer (Snyder and Adey, unpublished, June, 1993) and in pulp production (Sakai et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,500,086). It is also known to use pulp from recycled paper products to mold packaging and containers (Emery International Developments, Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada, January, 1995).